


The Dark Watcher

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Consentacles, Drugged Sex, M/M, Monster sex, Other, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 10:56:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3287687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sandy’s a pretty little human sacrifice, Pitch’s the monster he’s being sacrificed to. Yes, this scenario is kind of ridiculous. There’s also purple prose, flavored body paint, and, like, so many tentacles. So many. And Sandy wants all of them.</p>
<p>"I prrrobably shouldn’t think this is fucking adorable.. bUT THIS IS FUCKING ADORABLE I LOVE THEM <3"-tejoxys</p>
<p>"This is perfection, oh good lord. Get it, Sandy <3"-random-sedan</p>
<p>"If stories were food, this one would be rich, dark chocolate with some kind of liquer filling and I would have eaten all of it before anyone else could get a bite."-marypsue</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dark Watcher

**Author's Note:**

> Strictly speaking, dubcon, because Sandy is high as a kite on a drug I made up for the story for the beginning of the action. So, uh, if you’re a tentacle monster, always make sure to obtain sober, enthusiastic consent in real life. And if you're a human, don't try this at home.

       Smoothcool. Velvetsoft. Redpinkviolet. Yellowwhite. Turquoisebluepurple—oh, just like the sky to the east, filling with stars as the last light of day fades. Sandy takes a deep breath, trying to breathe in the sky. He thinks it might be the only way for him to fully understand the flowers piled up under, around, and over him on the bier. In the flickering light from the torches in the procession, their colors glow richer than any jewels, their delicate folds and broad curves catching shadows and enticing his eyes even as they bewilder his mind. Even just one flower like the simple calla lily resting against his hip seems like it would take a lifetime to comprehend.

            Distantly, Sandy feels a bit disappointed that he doesn’t have a lifetime to devote to such pursuits. Equally distantly, he remembers that if he  _did_  have a lifetime for that, he wouldn’t have had the chance to drink the dreamwine that’s led him to think so much about flowers in the first place.

            He wonders what the Dark Watcher will be like. Will it have sharp teeth, to bite into him like a ripe peach? Will it rasp him to the bones with a rough and tearing tongue? Will it really be black as a moonless night sky, all covered over with eyes bright as stars? If so, it must be very beautiful, he thinks. No wonder they’ve made him as beautiful as they can for this. It wouldn’t do to present something so wondrous with a quotidian sacrifice.

            The painters have outdone themselves this time, Sandy thinks. If the Dark Watcher liked the previous offerings, it would surely like him. And then Summer could finally come properly, with bright, hot, long days. The Watcher would sleep peacefully with Sandy in its belly. The mountain passes would open again for trade, freed from both ice and the Watcher’s stifling protection.

            The sky is dense with stars now, and Sandy knows they must be nearing the top of Offering Hill.

            There’s never been any doubt in Sandy’s mind, nor the minds of his friends, family, and fellow-villagers in tonight’s procession, that the sacrifices are eaten. It only made sense. The sacrifices were never seen again, and the Watcher didn’t watch for a few months afterward. It was like a bear, needing some rich food before hibernating.

            The painters have outdone themselves in this aspect as well, Sandy thinks. The swirling patterns on his skin—his only covering, save for the flowers—in bright, shining gold, brilliant silver, and rich lapis lazuli blue are not merely paint, but are also suspensions for various flavors, rich and sweet. There’s vanilla at his neck, cardamom on his arms, lavender and tart citrus on his chest, back, and belly. The designs on his thighs hold the warmth of cinnamon—he’d had an embarrassing reaction to the painting on his inner thighs earlier, but the women doing the preparation had been very kind. After having drunk so much dreamwine already, it would have been more unusual if such a thing had  _not_  happened. After the cinnamon, ginger followed on his calves, while his feet were adorned with rose and anise. Underneath it all, his skin shines softly with the same delicately amber-scented oil that had been used to give the luster of fallow gold to his blonde curls.

            A swell of pride fills Sandy’s chest, to think of the work of art he’s been made into. He’s sure, as he can be sure of anything right now, that even without the dreamwine he’d still be sitting peacefully within the flowers. It’s an honor to be the sacrifice, an honor to be consumed.

            The stars swim in the sky overhead as the procession sets the bier down on the altar on Offering Hill. Even through the canvas and flowers, the stone presses cold against his back. The elders and a few other volunteers place fine glass jars of the village’s finest preserves around him, the fruit within seeming almost to glow in the torchlight, violet touching black and ruby red and pale green-yellow.

            Seeing him able to focus on this part of the offering, the head elder offers him more dreamwine, which he obediently swallows down. How much have they given him today? Who’s been keeping track of these things? She glances at the others, indicating the empty bottle with a question on her face. The Watcher must have a  _live_  offering, after all, and dreamwine will only keep the blood warm for so long after an excess of it. The others shake their heads and she frowns. At least Sandy wasn’t a skinny little thing like the last sacrifice. He’d taken proper advantage of the honor bestowed on him some ten months before, when he was chosen as sacrifice at the summer festival. Nearly a year of thankgifts had taken him from a stocky youth to a plump morsel sure to satisfy any monster. He’d probably survive the dose of dreamwine at least until he was eaten.

            But unless they act fast, he probably won’t be able to complete his part in the ceremony.

            Sandy hears the head elder begin to speak, but he can’t understand her words. This doesn’t worry him too much. He’s been coached too well for this. Whenever she pauses, that means she’s ended a question, and all he has to say is “yes”. He’s not sure his tone matches the questions, which all have to do with his understanding of his purpose and his being here of his own free will, but the ceremony doesn’t stop. “Yes,” he says, over and over again, as the stars begin to bloom like flowers and the flowers begin to bleed into the night.

            Finally, the head elder stops speaking. She approaches Sandy once more, and though he tries to look at her, he can’t focus, no matter how much he tries. “Thank you, Sandy,” she whispers.

            He looks so young as he smiles, showing the gap in his front teeth and wrinkling his freckled nose. In another lifetime, one where he hadn’t chosen the gold tile from the basket, he’d probably be sneaking off to the woods with one of her granddaughters during tomorrow’s celebration of the completed sacrifice. She closes her eyes and shakes her head. That’s not this lifetime. She bends her head down and he kisses her cheek lightly. It’s supposed to be good luck. She’s not sure why.

            Sandy kisses all the cheeks offered him; some taste like salt. Don’t cry, don’t cry, he wants to tell them, but he can’t figure out how to speak without flowers falling from his lips. Anyway, if not for the dreamwine drying his tears, he’s almost sure he’d be weeping, too, at the sheer wonder of the myriad of warm, living faces presented to his lips. He wants to know more of that warmth, invite them all to the bier, heedless of the paint and flowers. But no, only the Watcher will be touching him after this. He giggles at the thought of asking the monster for a tumble before he’s eaten. With this much dreamwine flowing in his veins, he probably  _will_. No, no he won’t. He wants to be a good sacrifice.

            The villagers take their leave of him, and when they and their torches are gone, only the starlight remains to illuminate the scene. An icy breeze plays over Sandy’s skin, and once his eyes adjust to the faint light, he can tell his skin is all over gooseflesh. Without the dreamwine, he’d be all too aware that this night is still a last remnant of winter. He hopes the Watcher will come soon, before it begins to wear off.

            The stars turn slowly overhead, looking to Sandy like great wheels of fire, red and blue and gold and white. He feels their colors touch him, light and soft, almost like flowers, and the slightest keen escapes his lips. He needs more than color and light, more than the stars. Every inch of skin aches for more substantial touch, and if he could figure out where his limbs ended and the flowers began, he’d be thinking far too seriously about ruining his designs. His chest heaves with the deepest breaths he can manage without inhaling stars; he feels warmer than he’s ever felt, even with fever.

            The Watcher arrives silently. Sandy becomes aware of it as a black void in the sky above him. The narrow shape stands impossibly tall, its edges rippling with slow movement. A dozen bright, shining eyes look down at him from the heights of its form. Sandy shivers as it moves ever closer, blotting out more and more of the sky as it approaches. He can’t tell where it touches the earth, and its utter silence prevents him from guessing how close it already is.

            As it nears, Sandy’s thoughts race, skidding and sliding on dreamwine in his mind. He thinks that the Watcher looks almost like a man in a cloak, save that the cloak is—what? Wings? Other, stranger limbs? He can’t see a face, other than the starry eyes. Where is its mouth? There doesn’t seem to be any  _texture_  to the thing, as if it’s nothing but a shadow. And yet—and yet! Faced with this creature, he is not afraid! He is a good sacrifice, he has no regrets; a proud pleased smile spreads over his face as the Watcher folds itself in half, bending its face towards Sandy’s, making a cage of boneless but powerful arms around the altar. With the eyes only a foot or two away from him now, Sandy notices first that they don’t all blink in unison, and, second, that they seem somewhat confused.

            He isn’t given time to think on that, for the eyes now all open wide, and underneath them, a glistening split begins to form, growing wider and yet wider before it parts to reveal what seems like hundreds of narrow, sharp teeth, even the smallest longer than Sandy’s fingers. A long tongue, black as the rest of the creature, slowly licks across those teeth before lolling out towards Sandy.

            “Hello,” Sandy says into the pause that follows. Why isn’t the Watcher eating him? “I’m your sacrifice.” Should he tell the Watcher to sample him with that tongue before devouring him? Just to know where to begin. What would it feel like? It looks slick, agile, muscular—it’s being drawn back.

            “You’re not afraid,” the Watcher says in a deep voice that Sandy feels all the way through to his bones.

            Sandy shakes his head. “I am yours to devour, live and without struggle, oh Dark Watcher, anointed and adorned for your enjoyment—”

            “Is that something they told you to say?” the Watcher asks.

            Sandy nods.

            The Watcher’s hum is a low rumble that Sandy closes his eyes to hear better.  “Usually they’re screaming by now. How…” He—for Sandy, upon hearing the Watcher’s voice, has begun to think of him as such a one—extends his tongue again and briefly pushes it into Sandy’s mouth, sweeping over his own tongue and palate.

            Sandy makes only the briefest, muffled noise of surprise before beginning to stroke along the Watcher’s tongue with his own, taking in the slightly rough texture, the taste of it that reminds him of autumn sunsets and the hint of leaf-smoke on the breeze, the feel of the powerful muscles under the skin, and oh glorious, the  _warmth_  of it. To his disappointment, he’s only able to reciprocate for the briefest of moments before the Watcher pulls away, blinking rapidly.

            “So. Dreamwine. They’ve given you quite a lot of it, haven’t they?” If the idea hadn’t seemed so absurd, Sandy could have sworn that the Watcher sounded embarrassed.

            Sandy nods.

            “You couldn’t be afraid of anything right now, even if you wanted to.” The Watcher looks down at Sandy for a long moment. Sandy licks his lips. “I…suppose I’ll have to take you back to my cave and wait till it wears off,” he says.

            “You want me to be afraid of you?” Sandy asks as the Watcher piles the preserves on the altar onto the bier and picks the whole thing up in his many arms.

            “I need you to be afraid of me,” he says as they descend the hill into the deep forest. “Fear from the sacrifice is what sustains me over the Summer. The past sacrifices have not died by my teeth, but by imagining what my teeth can do, as vividly as a little dreamwine allows.”

            “Oh,” Sandy says.

            He sounds so disappointed, and the Watcher looks down at him curiously. “What’s wrong?”

            “I wanted to be a good sacrifice. I wanted to…” he sighs and sinks deeper into the flowers piled around him, “satisfy you. I was so happy when I was painted with these designs, all vanilla and lavender and cinnamon and…oh, there’s more, but I guess it doesn’t matter since you want fear instead of flesh.”

            The Watcher slows as he moves through the forest, to better focus on Sandy as he speaks. “I always did eat the flesh of the other sacrifices, after consuming their fear. They were not wasted.”

            “I think the painters did really well this year,” Sandy says.

            “I’ll—I’ll look more closely once we reach my cave,” the Watcher promises.

            Sandy wiggles happily. “And you’ll taste? Before I’m dead? I just—I want to know if you approve. But I’ll try to be afraid of you as much as I can. I won’t try to delay things.”

            “Why not?” the Watcher asks, avoiding Sandy’s question of tasting. “Why do you want to be a good sacrifice?”

            “Because…” Sandy says. A look of intense concentration forms on his face, softened only slightly by the dreamwine. “Because I want Spring to come. The passes need to open for our village to thrive, and that can only happen with a sacrifice. And also because I _am_  glad you protect us during Winter. And,” he giggles, “I’ve always been fascinated by you. You’re always described as so fearsome, but then in the details it’s all velvety black and starry eyes…terrible and beautiful. You wrap around the edges of all our maps.”

            “Beautiful?”

            “I always thought so,” Sandy says dreamily. “I still think so…I don’t think I’d like any other monster as much.”

            “You’re never going to be afraid of me, even as the dreamwine wears off,” the Watcher says.

            “Maybe not.” Sandy’s frown edges towards a pout, and the Watcher pointedly returns his attention to the forest path, rather than the plump lips that had been so recently around his tongue.

            “You know,” he says, “the passes will still open even if I don’t eat your fear. I just won’t be able to retreat nicely to the edges of your maps. I’ll need to remain active, feeding off the fear of many people, a little at a time. That’s dangerous for me. When I began asking for the sacrifice I did so because it would allow me to stay away from people for a few months together, when they wouldn’t be likely to need my help. Also, it made your village feel like it had some control over me.

            “These things are important to me, but there wouldn’t be any disaster for your village if one year was missed.”

            “Why do you want to stay away from people?” Sandy asks. “We can’t be dangerous to you, so tall, and strong, and…

            “I am a creature who lives on fear,” the Watcher answers. “Fear has a volatile nature. If your village thought it could not control me, their fear might be enough to lead them to seek me out and kill me, even as it made me stronger.”

            “No! I don’t want that to happen! I’ll do anything to make sure it doesn’t!” Sandy cries out, struggling to sit up on the bier. The thought of a world without the Watcher, without the possibility of the Watcher, terrifies him. He’s talked with travelling merchants at the Summer fair who come from places so far away that they have never encountered the Watcher in the Winter, that they do not believe those who have. They don’t believe in monsters at all, and Sandy doesn’t want to live in a world where they’re right.

            “Thank you,” the Watcher says, feeling Sandy’s fear soak through his form, though he doesn’t know the cause. “If there is something you can do, I will let you know.” He fondly brushes the cheek of his sacrifice with the tip of one tentacle. “By the way,” he says as he does so, “my name is Pitch.” Sandy smiles and shivers and leans into the touch.  _Dreamwine_ , Pitch thinks, even as he finds himself suddenly curious as to whether the rest of Sandy’s skin is as soft and warm as his cheek.

            Pointedly ignoring this, he brings Sandy to his cave in record time, and gently sets the bier down on the smooth stone just outside the entrance.

            “You’re not going to take me inside?” Sandy asks as Pitch settles down beside him, the arrangement of his body difficult to see given the utter blackness of his form.

            “Would you be frightened of the dark?”

            “Noooo…” says Sandy. “I was just curious.”

            “You’ll find out later what it’s like, when the dreamwine wears off, if you need to be frightened more.”

            Minutes pass. The way Pitch curls on the stone reminds Sandy of a sleeping cat, which he supposes makes him the mouse. But Pitch, in a crucial difference from a cat, didn’t seem to have fur. The tentacle that had brushed his cheek earlier had felt only like oddly smooth, slightly cool skin. Was the rest of his body the same? Were there any places that were warmer? Whether there were or not, oh, the discovery of the fact! That might finally be enough skin to touch and to be touched by, even with all the dreamwine.

            He makes a curious sound, half-laugh and half-moan, where both halves cut off into a whole sigh.

            “What was that about?” Pitch asks.

            “I want to touch your skin,” Sandy says.

            Three-quarters of his eyes blink. “You are near enough to reach out and do so.”

            “Moving seems very complicated right now. The dreamwine, you know…I would if I could. These flowers are starting to feel less comfortable than they used to.”

            Pitch raises his head slightly and pushes up on a few of his forelimbs. “I could remove the flowers for you, while we wait.”

            “Would you?” Sandy asks, blushing. “I mean, you don’t need to. If you don’t want to.”

            Pitch moves to loom over Sandy, limbs rippling. “Do you think you could make me do anything I didn’t want to do?” When Sandy shakes his head and blushes further, Pitch notices, with some consternation, that he’s not disappointed at all that the emotion radiating from Sandy isn’t fear, even though he’s not quite sure what it is yet. “Well, then,” he says, and begins.

            The flowers from the outside edges of the bier are brushed away easily. Once he reaches the ones touching Sandy’s skin, though, Pitch grows more careful, picking up the blooms one by one so to not smudge Sandy’s designs. The mortal really has been made a work of art. It would be a shame to lose the chance to observe the complete piece.

            Pitch finds himself growing clumsy as more and more of Sandy’s skin is revealed, accidentally brushing up against his soft, warm flesh with each flower he picks up. When he moves to clear away the flowers covering Sandy’s groin, his sacrifice makes a noise that sounds at least partially distressed. “Would you like me to stop?” he asks, though he doesn’t really want to, as he hopes leaving the tip of one of his tentacles resting on a clear spot on Sandy’s upper thigh makes obvious.

            “N-no,” Sandy stutters, blushing impossibly further. Pitch wonders if there’s any danger in it. “I’m just—embarrassed.”

            Pitch gives a rippling shrug and continues removing the flowers. Sandy’s skin is even warmer here than on the rest of his body, and he considers the idea that it might be nice—more than nice—to lick the flavored paint off Sandy while he’s alive. He would let him, surely. He wasn’t averse to his tongue when he was just checking for the taste of dreamwine in his mouth. Strange fearless little creature.

            He finishes removing the flowers to reveal Sandy’s cock, rosy and half-hard. It only grows further when he gently strokes it with the tip of a tentacle, and in his curiosity—he’s never had the chance to see a human in this state up close—he almost misses Sandy’s nervous squeak.

            “Did I do something wrong?” he asks, turning most of his eyes to Sandy’s face.

            “You’re not—bothered?” Sandy moves his gaze from Pitch’s eyes, along his shadowy form, and finally, to the flexible arm still resting near his groin.

            “That you find my ministrations pleasurable? Well, it is quite the change from fear.” He wraps a tentacle around Sandy’s cock and slowly strokes upward. Sandy’s face relaxes and he moans softly, and Pitch almost forgets what he was going to say, in favor of devoting all his attention to getting Sandy to make that same sound again. “But you are a lovely little thing, and I am…perhaps…more curious than I should be to see what else I can do with you before the dreamwine wears off.”

            “I don’t…think that this is entirely because of the dreamwine,” Sandy says, as Pitch effortlessly picks him up with several tentacles and uses another to brush the flowers off his back and remove a few even from the cleft of his buttocks.

            “Well, it must be,” Pitch says, spreading his wings to steady himself as he looks down at his sacrifice, this delightful armful so dazzlingly adorned. “It would be absurd to think that your cock would stand for a monster, without the neediness of dreamwine singing in your veins.”

            “But you’re so huge, and strong, and beautiful…” Those black wings, blotting out the stars, make Sandy’s heart race, his breathing quicken.

            “Absurd,” Pitch says, in a rumbling whisper. “You must be barely able to see me in the starlight. But, speaking of…I would like to see your form more clearly.”

            “How?” Sandy asks, his eyes wide and dark.

            “I would lick the patterns from your skin.”

            “Oh!” Sandy says, and trembles in the arms bringing him closer to that many-eyed face. “They are—they are for you to do that. But if you do that now my flesh won’t have the same savor when you do eat me.”

            “That does not concern me, when I have your living flesh to taste now. I would rather you direct your unusual solicitousness to my current hunger.”

            “I still can’t move,” Sandy breathes, meeting the eyes above him as best he can.

            “Let me move you then,” Pitch says, unrolling his long tongue and beginning to work at a golden curlicue on Sandy’s neck.

            Pitch is slow and thorough in his exploration of Sandy’s body; slow, thorough, and utterly inexorable. Had not the dreamwine already stolen his strength, Sandy thinks he might have very well gone limp anyway in the arms and under the tongue of the monster. He’s held delicately, but oh so easily, and even in the movement of the tip of the tongue he feels a strength so far beyond his own that there’s no chance at all that struggling would do any good if he wanted to escape, which he certainly does not.

            He is a good sacrifice, he is a good sacrifice, he is a good sacrifice…he moans, long and shamelessly loud, as Pitch’s tongue begins to work at the pattern on one of his thighs. Pitch blinks his eyes rapidly at him, but continues as before, the touch of his tongue forceful enough to massage the pliant muscles under Sandy’s skin even as it caresses.

            Sandy whimpers when it becomes clear that, right now, Pitch’s only going to lick the paint away, as his tongue passes near his aching cock but does not touch it.

            When the paint is all gone, Pitch reluctantly returns his tongue to his mouth. The longer he had tasted Sandy, the more interested he had become in the flavor of his skin cleared from decoration. But for the moment he will look at Sandy as he said he would. His sacrifice is beautiful, all soft golden curves and rounded limbs, a rosy flush accenting his little form. His eyes are half-lidded, and his mouth a— _welcoming?—_ O, as he takes great heaving breaths. And then, of course, under the curve of his belly at the join of his legs, stands his cock, now fully hard. How tempting it had been, with the twitches and throbs he had elicited as he had licked the sweet cinnamon from Sandy’s thighs.

            He knows he probably shouldn’t be treating his sacrifice like this, but that’s difficult to think about when this warm armful is right before him, giggling and moaning as he reaches out with one of his tentacles, almost unconsciously, to gently play with one of Sandy’s nipples. He’s not even sure when the last time was that he was able to indulge himself in such pleasures.

            “Mmmm—please!” Sandy begs, as more tentacles caress his sides—more than there were before, and not all of them arms.

             _But really, I’m just putting him into a situation that_ will _be terrifying when the dreamwine wears off_ , Pitch thinks, as he plants a kiss on Sandy’s belly before obligingly wrapping his tongue around his cock, earning himself some exclamations and facial expressions that drive away all thoughts of what he should be doing in favor of what he is doing.

            Sandy gives himself entirely over to touch and sensation, his dreamwine-greedy skin drinking up every touch of strangely smooth flesh against his own. The tentacles cradle him and stroke him—he almost can’t believe Pitch is playing with him like this—and even give him the support he needs to thrust into the coiled slickness of the monster’s tongue. The dreamwine seems to have worn off for that much movement, at least.

            And still he doesn’t feel afraid. He feels honored, he feels cherished, he feels worshipped—when he comes, his orgasm sweeps through his whole body, as overwhelming as the monster himself. As he slowly returns from that high to one merely of dreamwine, the glowing eyes of Pitch above him make him think for a confused moment that he’s fucked the night sky itself. The toothy smile beneath those eyes, however, soon brings him back to the only slightly less overwhelming reality. The reality! He covers his burning face with his hands.

            “Are you all right?” Pitch asks. The movement Sandy’s regained in his arms means that the dreamwine must be wearing off. It’s disappointing to think that he’ll start being afraid of him soon. He would much rather make him cry out in ecstasy again.

            Sandy peeps out through his fingers. “I’m fine—better! Better than fine. I’m just having a little trouble believing—even now—that you would want me that way. Was it…just curiosity?”

            “I am curious,” Pitch says, and Sandy feels a tentacle rub questingly between the cheeks of his ass, “but I am also enjoying your enjoyment very much. I would like to please you as much as I can before you come to your senses.”

            Sandy removes his hands from his face and brushes his palms and fingertips against some of the tentacles within his reach. Some are cool and dry, like the ones Pitch used to carry him here and take away the flowers. Others, however, are narrower, with tips more rounded and blunt. These are much warmer to the touch, and curiously slick. When Sandy strokes one of these with more purpose, most of Pitch’s eyes flutter closed, and his grip on Sandy becomes less steady.

            “What are you doing?” he asks.

            “I’d like to make you feel like you made me feel,” Sandy says, and he sees Pitch shiver.

            “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” Pitch’s whisper is a low rumble Sandy feels in his chest. What with all this and the dreamwine, it won’t be long before he’s hard again, but it doesn’t seem like Pitch will mind.

            “It’ll be good for you no matter what,” Sandy says, a little shocked at his boldness, but then again…he is a good sacrifice, he is a good sacrifice…“If I can’t handle it, you get the terror you need.” He gently draws one of the hot tentacles across his chest, using both hands to pet and stroke it down a few feet of its length.

            “You’re going to be horrified by this when you sober up,” Pitch says with a sigh.

            Sandy smiles and turns his head to kiss one of the slick tentacles near his face, and when Pitch unconsciously moves it towards his mouth, he obligingly sucks the tip, tracing patterns with one finger on the rest he can reach, patterns that Pitch guesses would mirror the ones he licked off of Sandy.

            “Ah—all right then.” He reluctantly removes the tentacle from Sandy’s mouth. “Let me just…rearrange things so I don’t drop you.”

            As soon as he’s closer to the ground, still cushioned by Pitch’s more ordinary arms, the fever-dream state of before returns. The hot, slick tentacles caress him urgently, and one returns to his mouth. He stretches his jaw for it, licks and sucks the best he can, even as more tentacles distract him by teasing his reawakened cock and drawing his knees apart and holding them there.

            He tries to relax as much as possible when a narrow tip of one of the ordinary tentacles uses some of the slickness of the others to press into his asshole. He knows this can feel good, just relax, relax, this is what your monster wants from you.

            His efforts toward relaxation allow the tentacle in his mouth to push an inch further down his throat, and so when one of the hot tentacles carefully breaches him, he knows Pitch must feel his moan rather than hear it.

            Feel it Pitch does, and that sensation, along with the sight of Sandy’s eyes fluttering closed while one of his tentacles disappears between his plump lips and another presses into him from below, makes him lose all control, and before he can withdraw, warn Sandy, or do anything, he’s coming through the tentacle in his sacrifice’s mouth.

            Sandy, however, takes it in stride, swallowing down the monster’s release, the taste sharp and sour. As the tentacle withdraws slowly, he can’t help but feel a certain amount of pride. He’s managed to please his glorious monster once; he’ll be able to do it again. He grins up at Pitch.

            “Are you all right?” Pitch asks, sounding slightly embarrassed.

            Sandy nods, and squirms against the tentacle within him. “I’ll be better if you keep going.” At this, Pitch makes a sound surely not a whimper, but not exactly a growl either. Whatever it is, he gives up trying to analyze it as the tentacle inside him pushes deeper—deeper! His eyes widen and he takes heaving breath after heaving breath as he’s filled more than he ever believed was possible. When that tentacle begins to thrust, his eyes roll back in his head. It’s wonderful, wonderful,  _overwhelming_ , and yet he wants  _more_ —and, o glorious, there is  _more_  to have. When a new tentacle presses against his lips, he smiles to himself before lavishing the tip with attention.

            To his astonishment, Pitch breaks his pace at this, and says, quietly as he can, “ _please_ , Sandy.” As he obliges, opening his mouth wide for burning, questing flesh, he thinks he’d come at the slightest touch, the monster’s plea echoing in his mind, the monster around him, the monster within him.

            The next tentacle in his mouth is even livelier than the one before, but with a little experimentation, he manages to convince either it or Pitch that he knows what he’s doing: its movements calm, while the other’s speed up, seeking Sandy’s pleasure as avidly as its own. When Sandy comes untouched, both tentacles follow at once, and Sandy could swear that his orgasm lasts as long as both of Pitch’s, as he’s filled simultaneously from above and below.

            “Are you all right?”

            Sandy licks his lips and smiles. “Are you going to ask me that after every time you come?” He strokes a tentacle to either side of him and the dark blot on the sky above him trembles.

            “You want me to keep going?” Pitch asks, disbelieving.

            “I want to satisfy you completely,” Sandy says, feeling a bit of a blush on his cheeks even now, when his mouth tastes of monster come. The tentacles writhe beneath his hands and he pulls them closer to his body. “I want you. I want your strange touch. I want—” He leans his head back and lets his mouth fall open with a breathy moan as the time for words ends when another tentacle pushes into him from below, easier than the first by far, Pitch eagerly taking advantage of the familiarity he’s gained with Sandy’s body at once.

            Sandy’s eyes flutter closed and he grins lazily as he brings the tentacles in his hands up to his mouth to kiss.  _I am a good sacrifice. I am a good sacrifice_ , he thinks as they slither smoothly against his skin that still cries out for more touch. He is a good sacrifice, and he will not need to think of anything but pleasure until his monster decrees it.

***

            When Sandy wakes the next morning to a mild, sunny day, he’s momentarily disoriented to find himself curled amidst coils of night-dark arms, near a huge, multi-eyed face. Only momentarily, however.

            Pitch watches him warily as he smiles sleepily and calmly reaches out a soft little hand to touch his face.

            “I can see so much more detail now,” Sandy says, tracing his fingers around the corner of Pitch’s mouth, not so much as flinching when Pitch bares his enormous teeth. “Wow. There’s a glitter in your skin. I’m glad the dreamwine wasn’t making me imagine that. Amethyst. Indigo. Sapphire.”

            Pitch sighs slowly and pushes Sandy into a sitting position. “You’re really not going to end up being afraid of me at all, are you? Not even after last night? I used you terribly.”

            Sandy leans back against the arms holding him, letting the sunshine warm his skin. The light gilds him so much that he looks almost like the sun itself to Pitch’s night-adapted vision, not the delightful, delicate, fleshly creature that had proved himself willing to take everything he had to offer. Curious to think he must be both.

            Sandy laughs and yawns. Last night?  Well. He stretches, wiggling against Pitch’s arms. Yes, he does feel somewhat sore in certain choice areas, but this is nothing compared to the sweet satedness that’s settled in the rest of his limbs. Used terribly? That’s hardly how he would put it. Last night they fucked, and fucked well. There’s nothing to regret, at least not between them, apart from the world here, though remembering some of his behavior in the bright daylight does bring a blush to Sandy cheeks.

            Alone, and with no custom to guide either of them, Sandy had let himself be entirely unrestrained. He demanded to be filled, again and again, the tentacles within him moving in counterpoint to the ones stroking his cock, and, often, the one he was eagerly opening his mouth for. There had been enough of Pitch that they hadn’t even been close to being done before Sandy was coming dry, and still he had cried out for more. It hadn’t been the dreamwine moving his lips to demand that Pitch turn him over and fuck him, turn him on his side, turn him every which way but just keep going, keep going! It hadn’t been the dreamwine moving his hips as he lazily rutted against the wider, even slicker base of one of the tentacles while he stared into a dozen half-closed eyes. It hadn’t been the dreamwine telling him to swallow down as much of Pitch’s come as he could, telling him to laugh when poor timing meant some leaked from the corners of his mouth, to jokingly thank Pitch when he came a few times on his chest and belly—“I couldn’t take another drop right now”.

            Maybe it had been the dreamwine that had made it possible for his cock to stand one last time that night, after even Pitch was done, when Pitch carried him into his cave to wash him in the hot springs there. But it was his own mind that had relished the strange sensation of being so entirely filled, now that he had a calm moment to think about it. Pitch had fussed, though—not with words, but with the gentle slide of his arms against Sandy’s taut belly, with how he opened him up not enough for one final fuck but just so that a careful massage could get him to expel most of Pitch’s come. In the dark of the cave, Sandy could only hear and feel how much there was, but this was enough to make him even harder. The monster had wanted him this much. He could satisfy a monster.

            When Pitch found his erection while washing him in the warm water after that, Sandy saw his eyes blink in the pattern he was beginning to think meant surprise, but Sandy knew this couldn’t have been his whole expression, for afterwards his bath became a reexploration of all his most sensitive points as well as a way of getting clean.

            Finally, after coaxing him through one last orgasm—a strange, slow, roll of pleasure that only emphasized how unusual the night had been—Pitch had made sure he was clean and then lifted him out of the hot spring and into a large towel from who knows where.  _Perhaps he’s got a very practical treasure hoard_ , Sandy thought, as warm, dry, and extremely well-fucked, he had fallen asleep in Pitch’s arms.

            And yet… “Do you really mean that?” Sandy asks. “I didn’t feel used but if that’s what you thought you were doing…”

            “No!” Pitch says, alarmed by how sad the mortal’s expression has turned. He tilts his face upward with the tip of one arm. “I was just hoping to…apologize…I suppose, if I treated you in a way I shouldn’t have. I had never thought mutual pleasure with a mortal was possible, and even now…that wasn’t anything like mortal lovemaking, was it?”

            “Not a bit,” Sandy says.

            “Hmmm.” Pitch settles down, reaching out with one arm for something on the plateau outside the cave that Sandy can’t see. “So what happens next? As I said, it doesn’t seem like you’re ever going to be afraid of me. But I dare say I can’t send you back to your village.” Pitch gives Sandy what he had been looking for on the plateau, one of the jars of preserves that had accompanied him as sacrifice. “Here. You must be hungry.”

            “Well, you know that no one’s ever come back,” Sandy says, scooping raspberry jam from the jar with his fingers.

            “Yes…well then, neither should you. Sandy,” he says, “you’re interested in monsters, aren’t you? And you’re willing to learn about them?”

            Sandy giggles. “Yes, I guess that’s one way of putting it.”

            “Well, I’d certainly be willing to let you learn everything about me,” Pitch says, half-ducking his head under his wing.

            Was he still managing to embarrass his monster? Sandy’s eyes widen for a moment before he pets one of the nearby arms reassuringly. “Pitch, I do want to learn about you. But won’t that stop you from being a monster to me? Isn’t that dangerous for you?”

            “You’re sitting in my arms naked and eating jam,” Pitch points out. “That’s not how mortals behave around what they think is monstrous. No…I just think that since the sacrifice didn’t work out this year like it had before, that means I need to figure out how to be a new kind of monster for mortals. I think you could help me.”

            “You’re going to keep me?” Sandy asks, a huge smile growing on his face.

            “It only makes sense,” Pitch says, pausing to delicately lick some jam from Sandy’s fingers. “After all, you were a very lovely present.”


End file.
